When comparing Novena Laptop vs Acer Swift 3 SF314-51-57CP, the Slant community recommends Acer Swift 3 SF314-51-57CP for most people. In the question“What are the best laptops for Linux?”Acer Swift 3 SF314-51-57CP is ranked 14th while Novena Laptop is ranked 19th. The most important reason people chose Acer Swift 3 SF314-51-57CP is:

The Swift 3 performs quite well for the price and laptop class it belongs to. Everyday tasks are handled without problem, multitasking is not a problem neither, and it can also play some lightweight games (DoTA, LoL, Team Fortress 2) at decent framerates as well as some more demanding software such as Photoshop and Matlab without overheating the hardware or lagging.

Pros

Pro

Optional heirloom case

There is an optional heirloom case available that comes with a built in keybpoard. The majority of the case is made out of wood.

Pro

Good performance for the price

The Swift 3 performs quite well for the price and laptop class it belongs to. Everyday tasks are handled without problem, multitasking is not a problem neither, and it can also play some lightweight games (DoTA, LoL, Team Fortress 2) at decent framerates as well as some more demanding software such as Photoshop and Matlab without overheating the hardware or lagging.

Pro

Great trackpad

The trackpad is a bit larger than average and feels great to the touch, albeit a bit rougher than most trackpads out there. It performs really well with standard swipes, taps, and gestures and has no stuttering or jumpiness.

Pro

Great build quality

For an entry model, the Acer Swift 3 has great build quality. The chassis is solid and there's absolutely no bending in either the chassis or the hood. The outer case is built from aluminum and the inner chassis is made of plastic.

Pro

Upgradeable storage

Unfortunately the CPU and RAM are soldered on the motherboard so they can't be upgraded, however the storage is not and can be easily swapped and upgraded if one needs to do so.

Pro

Portable

The Swift 3 is a pretty light and compact laptop. It weight around 3.35 lbs and is 0.7″ thick. The screen size is 14" which is well within the small category as far as laptop screens go.

Pro

Decent keyboard

The keys have a slightly concave shape and a soft finishing which makes them feel great to touch and they also provide pretty good feedback.

Pro

Good battery life

The Swift 3 can get a good 10 hours of use (sometimes even more) with simple tasks such as web browsing or watching videos. This is true for both the models with i3 and i5 CPUs.

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Cons

Con

Processor is ARM based and slow

The device processor is ARM based which means it will be quite slow and will have limited Linux support.

Con

Would be difficult to actually use in a lap

Being that the screen is on the outside of the device, a portable keyboard is necessary. Thus using on ones lap would entirely too difficult.

Con

Comes with some bloatware

The Swift 3 comes with some bloatware out of the box which may influence performance.

Con

Fairly noisy

The Acer Swift 3 has two small fans which sit on the CPU and GPU. Unfortunately they are rather agressive and start spinning even at low temperatures. Even something as simple as opening a browser will prompt both fans to start spinning quite fast. If you also keep in mind that both these fans have a fairly high pitched hum, then it's soon clear that this laptop is not the quietest on the market.

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